Higher Prices, Smaller Margins: The Reality of the Restaurant Business in 2026

I once got into a fist fight in the very first year I opened Union Square Cafe with someone who was drunk and creating around the dining room with this tie tied around his head, complaining that we didn't sort of bake potatoes. Classy. Yeah. Not really what I have built my career on, that kind of thing. Yeah, it wasn't about a potato. Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is on with Cara Swisher and I'm Cara Swisher. Restaurants are up against a lot right now. Rising food costs, labor shortages and affordability issues have made a notoriously tough industry even tougher. Still, there's plenty of creativity and innovation happening, which is why I've gathered a group of my favorite food experts to talk about what it takes to succeed today, how the industry is changing, and where they see opportunity. I think it's important to talk about other industries. I talk a lot about tech and media and things like that, but the food industry is the biggest employer in our country and it's being buffeted by tariffs and immigration issues and labor issues and people not going out in the changes after COVID. That's a really, really important industry to understand where it is headed. It's also about our being polarized from each other. We used to go out a lot more and now, of course, the internet with AI and also instant ordering has changed the business completely. Also my son is a cook and he's a young cook and he talks to me a lot about it and I find it to be fascinating. So I put together a really amazing group. Susan Feniger is a veteran chef, cookbook author, entrepreneur and co-owner of Mundo Hospitality Group, which she runs with her longtime business partner Mary Sue Milliken. Their restaurants include Border Grill on the Las Vegas Strip, Susan and Mary Sue starred in the Food Network series Two Hot Tamales in the 90s and she's also competed on top chef masters. She's the recipient of the James Beard Award and the Julia Child Award. She's also the subject of the documentary Susan Feniger forked, available to stream now on Apple and Amazon and she currently sits on the boards of Los Angeles LGBT Center and the Scleroderma Research Foundation. Danny Meyer is the founder and executive chairman of Union Square Hospitality Group. He opened his first restaurant, Union Square Cafe, in 1985 it is a classic later building a restaurant portfolio that includes Grammarcy Tavern, the modern and Manhattan. He's also the founder of Shake Shack, you might have heard of it. He's also the recipient of the James Beard Award and the Julia Child Award. He has a new book called What Could Possibly Go Right, The Essential Journey to Scale and Enduring Culture. An L.S.R. Sontag is a Washington Post food critic. He previously was a restaurant editor at Bon Appétit where he led the magazine's annual restaurant issue. He was nominated for a James Beard Award and named a Forbes 30 under 30 recipient. As a teen, he co-authored a cookbook called Flavors of Oakland. Our expert question comes from the one and only Ina Garten, host of the new Vox Media Podcast Happy Hour with Ina Garten, so stick around. This holiday all plans, even unlimited, are just $15 a month. A holiday deal this good, obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song like all I want. Right. Okay, we can't afford that. You know, forget the music budget. Stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at midmobile.com/switch. Up from payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent to taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. 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Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS-Luke Erics Disease, Myosthenia Gravis, or Lambert Eaton Syndrome and Medication's including Botulinum Toxin, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. As your doctor, visit BotoxCronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-444 Botox to learn more. Hi, I'm Guy Rose. On how I built this, I sit down with the people behind some of the world's most recognizable brands. Make Nvidia and Starbucks and Raising Canes to find out how they actually built them. Think of it as a free MBA told through deeply personal stories about taking risks, making mistakes and building something great. I'm Guy Rose. Listen to and follow how I built this wherever you get your podcasts. Susan, Danny and Elazar, thank you for coming on on. Thank you. Fantastic to be here. Great to be here. Happy to be here. Elazar, in your first column for the post about a year ago, you wrote that in addition to covering the DC dining scene, which a typical critic does, you're also covering the way restaurant culture is evolving nationwide and that's pretty ambitious. So I'd like to start by asking each you, what is one of the biggest changes you've seen in restaurant culture over the course of your careers and what surprised you the most and why? And so Elazar, I'll start out with you and then Susan and then Danny. So much has changed. In the last, I was going to say decade, but even really in the last five years since the pandemic, I think it's not an exaggeration to say that everything changed and then something sort of went back to how they were, but there really was a seismic shift. I think the thing that I'm paying the most attention to and that feels like it's maybe changed the most and has sort of shifted in a way that feels most permanent is hospitality and just the broad relationship between diners and restaurants, sort of like what diners want or expect a restaurant to be and what a restaurant really is or what a restaurant thinks it owes its diners. I think is mismatched now in a way that it maybe wasn't in the past. I think a lot of diners still expect a certain kind of customer is always right service. And if I come four weeks in a row, then I expect a free glass of champagne or a small gift from the kitchen and on the other side of the equation are a bunch of chefs and restaurant tours saying, you know, I'm barely staying afloat here and the margins get smaller and smaller and, you know, the costs of business just fluctuates madly. And I think that that relationship has always been there, but to me, it feels particularly kind of poignant right now. Oh, interesting. Susan? Yeah. I mean, during COVID, I think as always, the restaurant business stepped up in a huge way to support the community. I mean, we ended up, you know, initially starting with doing 3,000 meals a day for clinicians that has expanded since then. We're now we're doing around 3,000 meals a day for food and secure out of our commissary because, of course, it's the right thing to do and the need is there, continues to be there. But diversification was so critical because people weren't going out. But we've seen in LA, which is, I think across the country, but certainly in LA, we're just hit with restaurant closures, food costs has gone up dramatically, labor costs, which of course, labor should go up because employees need to get paid more, but that's gone up dramatically. Like we're talking huge numbers yet. I think the public, maybe during COVID learned to cook, learned to understand they could do more at home so people doesn't feel like they're going out nearly as much. I think profitability has shrunk and it just feels that there's been a whole shift in terms of how people are dining out. I mean, certainly there are restaurants in LA that are doing quite well, but it's mind boggling to see not only large sort of known restaurants going out of business continually over the last five years, the food business, such an amazing business. I mean, I can't tell you how many times we've called Danny to get questions answered and input, but everybody is struggling for sure, but it feels like LA has just really dropped dramatically. Plus the industry, the main industry has certainly declined there. And all of the people that are working for us, so many people have been absolutely petrified to come to work and be there for the labor shortage is crazy. And yet, I think it's true, the customer, which, of course, they should be right. That's they're the ones paying, but there is sort of the same demand, although everything else has gone up, you know, price is that, so it's interesting. Danny? Well, I think we learned a long time ago that the customer is not always right and that, and that's because no one's always right. The customer needs to feel heard, but I do think that when you're in the hospitality business, you're obviously have the same goal as your guess, which is that they leave a little happier than how are they came. But I think that, um, that coddling people to the point of entitlement has not served anyone because at the end of the day, our first customers actually are staff members. That's why we are in this business is to provide career opportunities. And, you know, what Susan was saying is absolutely true. You know, 20 years ago, I had never closed a restaurant before. Now we've closed 11 and you lose a community when you do that. You lose the community of people who work for you and you lose the community of the relationships you have with your guess. Now, a lot of other things have gone very well in that time. But if power to say what's changed the most in the last 20 years, I think it's been technology driven, which is that, um, people now know that whether consciously or subconsciously, they are either voting with their meals for convenience or experience. And the convenience thing that did not exist 20 years ago, I can just push a button and have room service delivered to wherever I am from wherever I want it. And so the good thing is I think we've kind of turned the corner right now. And there's so much desire for people to be with people that restaurants actually still maybe more than ever provide that community opportunity for in person humanity. Well, kind of accelerated a trend that was already happening. This take out like as if everybody lives in New York City because that New York City always had that experience to some level. I'm going to continue just for a second. Your new book is called What Could Possibly Go Right? Which makes me laugh every time I say it. It looks at the transition from restaurant to to leader of a major hospitality company and the bumps and bruises along the way. Why do you make the distinction to being being a restaurant tour and running a hospitality company? And how has your approach to hospitality helped you succeed in a notoriously difficult industry? Well, you still care just as deeply about every guest experience. And I've been able to use technology to be able to see who's dining in our restaurants tomorrow. Go over every single name that night before. And then the morning after I get a chance to read all those reports of what actually happened on those tables. However, when I was a restaurateur, I was the guy on the front door reading every single table. And there came a tipping point where probably when I had about six restaurants where I couldn't walk to everyone, couldn't be at every single one for every single meal period, they all used to be within a 10 minute walk of one another. And that's the point at which I had to just acknowledge that my job is now to lead a culture of people to hopefully make the kind of hospitality decisions I would have made if I had been the guy right on the front door. So Susan, you and your business partner, Mary Sue Milligan worked in the restaurant industry for decades also. The border grill in Las Vegas flagship is still going strong after 27 years. You've expanded into stadiums. I saw one the other day when I was at one. And you just opened the feed folks border grill catering commissaries which you just noted. Talk about the difference of doing that because you've had businesses in business a long time, but still have you suffered from the same thing? Yeah, I mean, you know, I think like I said, we, you know, during COVID, we diversified like because we needed to figure out how to survive. And really, I think like Danny said, the sort of most, in many ways, the most important thing I think for Mary Sue and I are the people who are our family who work for us. And the idea of laying off so many employees, I think that the diversification was really wonderful. Not only were we supporting the city, you know, with helping food insecure and people in temporary housing, which was amazing, but also we were able to bring people back to work. And so that was really rewarding. I mean, we Mary Sue and I've been business partners 46 years. And all, you know, basically we've started out as cooks and, you know, became chefs and opened up our first restaurant and didn't know anything about really running a business except how to watch food costs. But, you know, in many ways, it's about relationships, it's about the people that work for you and how to motivate them and keep them feeling heard and passionate about what they're doing. Not that different than the restaurant business, but in terms of generating growth, it's very different because you don't have people walking in the door and your business isn't 100% dependent on enough people walking through the door. With the commissary business, you have to go out and try to create a new business. And many of it is through the nonprofit world and through the county and city and federal government funding. But you sort of know how many people you're going to be feeding each day. And so it's, it is a whole new business for us. We're doing, you know, we're working in the nonprofit world. We're working it. We're trying to, you know, supply hot meals individually packed. In addition to that, maybe we're working on a program for those people that are in temporary permanent housing, how to teach them, how get food and how to cook and supply for themselves. It's very different than people, you know, getting ready for doing 100 dinners or 200 dinners. It's a whole different model. So it's one of the great things about the hospitality world is that you continue to keep learning, which is really wonderful, but it is a different business, a different business. Yeah. I was just going to add, you know, what Danny reiterated and has really been saying for a long time now, which is like, obviously, the customer is not always right. I think part of what I'm sort of grappling with right now, just as a critic, as a diner, as someone who talks to a lot of chefs, but also talks more so to other diners is that I think there's a feeling right now a little bit of like almost indignation on the diner front. Often it comes back to the question of tipping. This is often where it comes up when I'm talking to diners. You know, well, if the service was bad, why should I still have to tip 18, 20% and I think it sort of all comes back to this question of like, why should I have to understand how restaurants work? And I think maybe if I had to put a fine point on it, the thing that has changed the most culturally in the last five years is that I think by and large chefs do want diners to understand restaurants. That's a really good point. But one of the things that's actually changed for you is you're the post-first non-anonymous food critic, which was sort of a game for a long time since most restaurateurs knew what the critics looked like. Why did you decide not to be anonymous? And our reviews as important as they used to be given the explosion in regular citizens, you know, reviewing things or, we'll get an influence there's in a minute, but how is the job different when people know who you are and say recognize you? I think in terms of anonymity, I mean, there's sort of a just practical reality and then also sort of a spiritual philosophical side. The practical side is just, you know, I'm in my late 20s. I was in my very early 20s when I started in this industry and started working in media. So I always had a digital media life. There wasn't really a world like previous generations of critics where I could ever be truly anonymous. So part of it was just introducing myself as sort of part of a new generation of critics. There are going to be fewer and fewer anonymous critics by virtue of people have been posting themselves online for a long time. There's still things I do. I think, you know, I don't talk about this so often sort of in my reviewing process, but I still book under aliases and so I still try to make sure restaurants don't know I'm coming. There have been one or two times where, you know, I sort of succeed in like getting in the door unnoticed and then I look over to the kitchen and halfway through dinner, I actually see them switching out their chef. So it does make a difference. Like you don't want to be noticed, but I also don't think that anonymity is necessarily important anymore. No, and it's not the thing for me. In terms of, you know, does a review matter? I believe that reviews still matter tremendously to diners who care because they just serve a different purpose than an Instagram video or, you know, a social media post of any format. And that's not to say that they're sort of inherently better. Like I really don't feel that way. I honestly, sometimes I think the medium of a quick social video like gets the message out more impactfully, but a review is a different kind of project. You know, I go to every restaurant three times. You know, I pay for all of my food. There are sort of no comps. And I don't have to navigate complicated dynamics around coverage in exchange for, you know, a meal, which a lot of influencers do because either they want to and they can or they can't afford the restaurants otherwise. You know, I talk to every chef. I interview every chef like any journalist would for any source story before I write the review and it's different. It's just different. And I, I hope that criticism carries on. There are less critics than there used to be, but I think it would be pretty sad if we lost the restaurant review. So Danny, how do you look at that? I mean, how much do reviews matter anymore? I think reviews matter tremendously, but in a different way. So when I opened Union Square Cafe in 1985, it was a 27-year-old just maybe a year younger than this critic on the call right now. - That's right. - The reason we needed a reviewer at that point is that people didn't, the consumer didn't even know the restaurant existed. We didn't have Instagram and Twitter and all that kind of stuff. And so this was a way to let people know the place exists. They went through all the dishes. Here's where you should order. Here's what you should stay away from. Now that's changed because with influencers, with social media, you know the places open even before the critic arrives. You actually know which dishes you wanna order because as you've read it on belly or some other platform, your friends told you all about it. But here's why I think it matters even more than ever right now. The impact of a review has two different potential outcomes. Number one is that if it's a great review, or maybe even a horrible review, it could impact your business still up or down. There's an authority that goes with the small handful of remaining mainstream media reviewers out there. So can it impact your business? That's one thing. The thing that I think it does, maybe even more than ever, though, is to impact the morale and motivation of the team. And I can tell you that when the New York Times began a couple of years ago, a handful of years ago, to be much more of a national newspaper in its aspirations and ceased to do a weekly review of a New York restaurant, the impact was mighty on our industry. The restaurant review of the New York Times or New York magazine, I'm sure it's the same with the Washington Post, gives restaurants and chefs something to aspire to. On a daily basis, because you don't know if or when the restaurant critic is going to come in, you're on your toes just a little bit more. And I think that absent that, I think it's a disservice to the consumer because there's not as many people kind of watching and giving restaurants something to strive for. So I think restaurant reviews matter more than ever. I can tell you that we used to always know that with a new restaurant, you were going to see the critic probably within nine to 12 weeks of opening. You knew it. With a new chef at a major restaurant, you knew you were going to see the critic. We have a restaurant called the Modern, at the Museum of Modern Art, which is now 22 years old. We have two mission-last stars, Raleigh and Chateau. We've not seen a New York Times critic for three chefs, not for something like 14 years. And so that doesn't mean we can't self-motivate to stay on top of our game, but we miss that. We miss that edge. - What about you, Susan? How do you look at that? - Yeah, I mean, you know, it's interesting because certainly, you know, back when we opened City, which was '81, and on with Bordecaux Grill, which was '90, you were like, for sure. Same thing as Danny said, waiting for at that point might have been Ruth. I'm not sure whether I should add back in the early days there. And you were waiting for them to come in. The thing that I think Jonathan Gold brought, because there was always this feeling, I think, for myself and for Mary Sue, is that there's so many great little restaurants that never get attention. And so I think there's that there was not so much now, but there was such an inequality, whereas if you were a known chef or you were on TV or you were a big name somehow, you'd get reviewed and the little guy that was doing amazing food didn't. So Jonathan, I think, really brought that, at least in LA, to like, there's great restaurants here that nobody may know about unless you live in the neighborhood. So I loved that there was an equalizing thing that happened there that was really important. You know, I think it is so important for the team when you get a great review. And there's a, I think, an authority that happens when a food writer does it versus when an influencer does it. Now, there have been times where I feel like you might see a review of a restaurant that just feels like, okay, those are, those are just opinions. They're not necessarily, you know, what feels important. I think as a food writer, you have a responsibility to be really fair and objective about the things that really matter. You may not like a certain dish and it's important to say why it wasn't your favorite. I think when it becomes very cutting, it's not valuable. When it's feedback that's important, just like any comment on yelp or anything, you always want to look at and say, is there truth there? And if there is then learn from it. So I think, yeah, there's certainly, there's huge value to food writers and it's true. You don't see near what you used to see and it doesn't have the power that it used to. And I think that's a loss for the industry for sure. - Elsa, you just released the Washington DCs 40 best. I don't know why it's 40, but I'd love to, like why 40, not 50 and 35, I don't know. But what were you thinking when you were doing this, kind of thing? - I mean, mostly what I was thinking honestly was just how lucky I am. You know, I've done a lot of lists when I was at Bonapetit. I did, you know, sort of in some ways, bigger national lists, you know, the best restaurants in the whole country. But the thing that I had always sort of admired most as a young reader and diner and then later journalists is the kinds of lists that Pete Wells and Ruth Racial and, you know, Jonathan Gold before would put out that would sort of capture the story of a single region. I think that there's just something so special and now kind of rare about a media product that captures the spirit of a region. And it's, you know, it's my spirit of a region. It's not the absolute value of DC, but I was so excited to do this. And you're right that it is like kind of an OG, very traditional, not breaking the mold way of doing restaurant criticism. And I actually love that, like the reason it's 40 is, 'cause it's been 40 for a long time. And there are elements of this kind of journalism that I actually think are sort of just about like honoring the tenants. You know, I don't want to reinvent the parts of restaurant criticism that, you know, Tom Seatsman, Phyllis Richmond before him did so well. I wanna give people the thing that they love and that they sort of trust, like that establishment value that is harder and harder to find now. I just wanna give it to them my way. So I changed some things, but I also left a lot the same. - You know, I wanted to just throw something completely off this, but I wanted to say it before, is that, you know, I mentioned it earlier, the hospitality, the restaurant business is so giving. I think everybody across the country, restaurants big or small, give back to the community when there's some catastrophic thing happening, when COVID, when the fires, when the writers strike. Restaurants just step up in such a huge way. The community steps up all the time. And maybe that's something that doesn't ever get enough attention is how much the restaurant community, one of the biggest employers in the whole country, give back. We'll be back in a minute. - Support for this show comes from Quince. My whole career, I've considered the questions of our time and they are complicated, ever-changing and frankly, stress-inducing. So when it comes to shopping during the holidays, I want simple, easy and reliable gifts. Luckily, Quince helps with that. They have high quality pieces, including 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters and high quality down outerwear. But it doesn't stop with clothing. Quince offers leather bags, hotel quality, bedding, chef grade, cookware, and five star luggage, basically plenty of ways to find something special for everyone on your list. 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Download the built app and join the membership for where you live at joinbuild.com/cara. That's j-o-i-n-b-i-l-t.com/cara. Use our link so they know we sent you. Danny, you write your new book about the concept of essentiality, which you say is a grand goal of your restaurants. It doesn't mean perfection. What is essentiality in that regard? And what does it look like at a place like Union Square Cafe versus Say a Shake Shack? I think essentiality looks the same way whether you're talking about your favorite music or the favorite boss you've ever had or your favorite city, your favorite and or uncle. It's something that means that the fact that it existed in the first place made your life better. Like the song makes you so happy every time you hear it that you can't imagine if the songwriter had never been born. And what I came to learn over the course of four years of writing this book was that this came to me basically with one example. The first time I closed a restaurant was a toggle, which at that point was almost 13 years old. It was an Indian restaurant in New York City. And I felt a sense of shame. I felt for laying off 140 people. I felt a sense of shame for losing a chef, Lloyd Cardo's, to put everything he had into it. And I thought that immortality in restaurants, actually with the Lake Joe bomb used to say was the definition of a classic restaurant is one that out survives its first lease. And so I felt like well, we certainly hadn't done that because we had a 20 year lease. And over the course of the three years of writing this book, three and a half years, that sense of feeling like a failure actually evolved into understanding that immortality is not the issue. None of us is immortal. Restaurants are not immortal. But essentiality was the issues. Did you create something that actually made a difference in the lives of the people who would work there, dying there, the community? And I came to learn just by getting letters from people over the years that they really, really missed top. I don't know where they all were when you needed them. But the fact is that that is the goal. When I wrote setting the table 20 years ago, I thought that hospitality was the goal. And now I understand hospitality is a means towards something much more important, which is essentiality. We have not always hit it. We've had restaurants that have closed that, you know, nobody missed when they closed, not because we didn't try. And I think, you know, by the way, Mary Sue and Susan have totally created those kind of restaurants that made my life better because they existed. We can all do that. And whatever. Listen, Cara, I'm not trying to kiss up to you, because no one gets to do that. But I would really miss it if your podcasts did not exist. And they make my life more interesting. Someday they shall. Now, I know what you mean. It's more of making it. It's an ephemeral thing because it's like a show. Like it's like my code conference, which doesn't exist. And I'm happy that it did. And I think it had a big impact. And then I was glad that it was not in a weird way. But Susan, your compstering restaurant, Alice B, inspired by Alice B. Tockless and Gertrude Stein, closes doors this fall. And it did mean a lot to community. Like Danny was just talking about just going by the comments on your Instagram posts announcing a news. How does the concept of essentiality connect to your work and a place like Alice B? And how do you know you've built a restaurant that's not just successful, but essential to the community. And then what it has to close, what does that mean for you? Well, it's interesting because there is a great quote that Wolf had in in Fork, the film that got done about me, but just a great quote with Wolf said, you know, if you never open a restaurant, you don't have to worry about closing. So, you know, I think that was that's really important, which is that the hardest part of closing is, I think like Danny said in the beginning, when we first closed city, back I think it was after like 14 years, it was just it was heartbreaking and embarrassing and like how come we couldn't succeed. And we've closed many restaurants over the 45 years, 46 years. But I think it's, you know, like with Alice B, you know, it's the first time in so many years since city days that we weren't doing Mexican. And we ended up getting a Michelin mentioned, which we've never got after all these years. And I was really proud of this connection. It's it was in concept, a high end apartment complex out in Palm Springs, for the LGBTQ community, 55 and over. And it brought such community together that I was, everything about it was so heartwarming. I loved the food we were doing. I loved the service that it was providing that when you would see people and obviously it was way more than just the community that came. But it felt like people were so passionate about what we were doing and about the concept of being part of a community. And I was so proud and excited about the food, but it just couldn't be supported to make it financially viable after a few years. It was just like, this just isn't viable given everything that was going on, you know, with Trump, everything that was going on with people not, you know, the Canadians not coming back to Palm Springs with people not going out as much with the seasonality of it. I mean, some people can make it out there. We just couldn't. We were off the beaten track, which I love because we were in the neighborhood. And so you felt like you were supporting the neighborhood. So that was really, I think that was a very sad closure for me. I mean, it was interesting. We got the Michelin mention and, you know, six months later we closed. But I think it's, you know, at some point these decisions, they have to become business decisions. Even though I really do feel like we've gotten so many texts and so many people following up on Instagram, I'm just saying, how sad they were that we left, that we left the community. And I think that for me, certainly because I come from the community that just felt like such a let down because to see the people and how they came together creating a space that was safe and doing, you know, I think what was really great food, that the whole, you know, it just was big and it's certainly essential for many reasons. Yeah. I'm going to ask you specifically. You wrote about the closing of Little Dabs Oasis in Hudson. And then I'd like to juxtapose it in the second part in a 2023 piece for Bonna Petite about San Francisco restaurant culture observed a lot of bland sameness among restaurants at the time with chefs and owners investing in successful concepts that weren't innovative. So that's where some of it is going, which is sort of like I'm thinking of hotels have been on that a lot. Hotels used to be interesting and now I mean I always call four seasons holiday and for rich people essentially. That's got a ring to it. Yeah, thank you. But talk about that idea, Little Dabs versus what you had written in Bonna Petite, this sameness that then infects. Well, I mean, I'm like, you know, the three of you talking about this idea of essentiality, which I find such a perfect concept and such a hard word to say. But I think it really captures something sort of critical about the way that diners are relating to their favorite restaurant. So that recent piece I wrote about Little Dabs, it's a restaurant in New York's Hudson Valley and Susan, it sort of is in a similar vein, a restaurant that just is so important to the queer community and extends beyond. It's important to a lot of people who just live in the region for a lot of different reasons. It sort of came to define a certain way of cooking and a certain kind of design in restaurants. But for me, it was just the restaurant that happened to open the year I went to college when I was coming out and I wasn't feeling great about my life. I wasn't feeling great about myself. And here was this restaurant that was just beyond vibrant, beyond open, beyond welcoming. And so I didn't write a reported story about its closing. I wrote a personal essay and You know, it was the first time I was gonna say in a long time, but really maybe ever that like I was so Devastated by the closing that I actually put off writing the story until the day it was due, because I Just couldn't believe that it wasn't gonna be open for me anymore And it actually like makes me emotional talking about it now and I think You know, I've been writing about restaurants for a long time now and I there was still something sort of profound about that realization Like I was shocked that it was like a it was like a relative had died and I think in that idea of like essentiality is how much of Ourselves we sort of leave in our favorite restaurants, but that's also part of what makes them essential right is their impermanence and so Writing about it was honestly more than anything like I think some people they resonated You know with the piece and it made them feel good too, but mostly I was just so damn relieved to get it out of my system Because I was so heartbroken The flip side of that is the sameness You know, I will say first of all in San Francisco's credit I know the San Francisco bashing goes on and on and in ways I've taken part But you know, that's the area I'm from and I wrote about it. That's because we're so good, you know, good exactly And I think San Francisco actually has kind of moved out of the sameness a little bit I think the food scene is is I think a lot better than it was sort of right out of the pandemic, but Yeah, I mean, you know a lot of chefs are doing the thing that feels safe and Safe for a chef isn't necessarily the same as making a space that's going to feel safe and comforting For diners it might feel sort of familiar in the way that a chain restaurant does, but you know I think that guess is sort of sort of some of the core disconnect between like What diners expect from our restaurants? We want them to be eccentric and surprising and have a point of view and sort of shock the senses, but You know, then maybe those are restaurants. We only go to once a month because they're kind of exhausting But I think that that's part of this too is like chefs are investing in easy concepts where there's real estate Development money, you know, which is hotels and I mean honestly a restaurant in a in the lobby of or in a building is yours Was the outlier like often those are not daring concepts But so they still exist like there are ways to move through that world and have the financial backing and and still create a restaurant with meaning Why don't each of you first Janie and then Susan talk about this this idea between being innovative and interesting and quirky It was a word that I was sorry used and the pressures to be same. I have some pretty strong feelings about this I I don't think being the same is being the same I'm going to go back James Beard who I think I met once before he died Would famously be Identified wherever he went, you know big Tall bald guy with a big bow tie people would come up to him in airports everywhere Where should I eat what where she eating is down? What's what's your favorite restaurant? And he would say my favorite restaurant is the same as yours It's the one that loves me the most yeah, and it's kind of hard to argue that point and so I think about A city like Rome which has taught me so much and if there's 2,000 truckery is in Rome. There's probably an 85 percent intersection between every single menu item on every single one of this truckery menus and Rome is a city that Doesn't exist to shock you it exists to take Basically a cannon of 20 dishes and give different chefs sometimes. It's the Papa sometimes. It's Lamama An opportunity to say this is what I think carbonara should be this is what I think Cacho Pepe should be and More important than that is this is your restaurant. I'm doing this restaurant for you in this neighborhood in this community and You know, I'm not a San Francisco basher. I think it's great I've been there three times in the last month. It's great that there's a lot of innovation happening and I love going back to places like zooni and katonia or the cafe Chapinies where I know This feels like San Francisco, and I think that sometimes we innovate at the expense of being good, and I'm okay with that I think My philosophy has always been like I want to do the food that I love that I'm drawn to so I mean not that I ignore what I think the customer wants, but I feel like I'm drawn. I've always been drawn to street food You know back. I took my first trip to India in 1982 eating street food, and In Vietnam a China when I what you know when I opened street, which only lasted like six years I just I thought the food was amazing, but there were all these different dishes that I that I think even That it was very eclectic because we were doing street food from around the world even with border grill When we opened border grill very soon. I drove all through eight street food all over Mexico back in the early 80s I'm drawn to Authentic street food from everywhere, and so when we create a menu We created thinking like this is the most interesting dish to fill out this section of the menu And I mean we used to not even make the wording accessible then we sort of shifted that to try to make the wording You know more accessible to the people. So it wasn't Papu says it was like hot what is it Papu said so that people could understand it You know and maybe that's why we've closed restaurants over the years, but I really do feel like for me It's about the food that I'm passionate about and how to do it well and how to respect The community that we're doing it from you know and Not putting chicken breast on the menu because I never eat chicken breast because I eat leg and thigh So we just don't sort of shift it that way we try to make it a dish that people will love That they'll try the first time that they'll love it and try to get them there get them educated about it and excited about it I think that they're sort of a distinction and I don't know that I'm particularly good at making it maybe even in my own mind But you know Danny like the restaurants in San Francisco, especially that you mentioned To me feel like they don't represent sort of that sameness at all You know like Zuni has so much intent and it is just chicken I mean it is it's chicken. It's chicken and martini's and really great fries There isn't another zuni it's not the sameness and I mean a shapenese cafe It's it's singular and there's one million restaurants just like it, but there aren't and I think that the thing It's hard to talk about maybe because it's sort of a femoral or or nebulous, but it's like it's the intent And I think what you say I love so much the idea that it's like a restaurant that sort of loves you back and I do think there are restaurants where that's not the case where Someone asked someone else what is the restaurant that's going to be the most successful in this neighborhood Oh, it's a steakhouse okay. We'll open a steakhouse, but I think that's very different from a restaurant You know Susan like you're describing that just serves the food that the chef wants To serve which I think there's no sameness there, you know, that's someone's fingerprint So it's a weird distinction, but I think there's something in there of restaurants that have a soul and a heartbeat and then restaurants that You know, just have line items or have a stunt. I was just gonna say like with with border grill I think we just try to do it's not like are we trying to be Innovative or like use a chiote in a dish that makes no sense I think we really try to think about what was done for the last, you know Hundreds of years how do we do it and improve upon it and just make it be wonderfully authentic but taste really delicious So it's not so much about how new or creative can we be is but how can we do the same thing but do it with the proper cooking techniques And make it really really Special and delicious even if it's an enchilada. How do you do that? How do you make the homemade flour tortilla? Really yummy or corn tortilla or whatever you're doing I get the point So every episode we get a question from an outside expert This is going to shift the conversation, but here's yours. I know I have a question What can restaurants that are concerned with hospitality do about a table of diners that are really rowdy and Disturbing other guests. I have no idea what the answer is maybe one of your guests does. Oh my god That's a great scarf. I know it's a great scarf. Yeah, it's a total left-room But it's the idea of what it experiences because a lot of times diners have gotten very I would say indulge in of themselves. I've noticed in restaurants much more So the behavior of people in restaurants has changed rather dramatically. I love each of you Address it Susan. What do you think and Danny and then Elsa? You know, I want people to come into the restaurant and have a great time So there's no question about it. If a table gets too rowdy We're just like a little bit out of control I mean, I think the way to do it is I mean often if I'm there I would go to the table and be really sweet and just say can you know can you guys assume me it's guys May not be let's assume. Yeah And just try to say can you guys just little bit just keep it down a little but try not to be so Completely these guys are blah blah blah. I mean, I would just try to do it sweetly or I would try to make sure our manager Would take the same approach and try to gently get them to lower their level I mean, I never want to stop someone from having a great time because that's what it's about but I would try to respect the people that are having acquired conversation or people come in and they'll say it's too noisy And on the other hand, if they come in and the restaurants to quiet, then they think it's not successful. So it's a fine line between how to balance what the customer thinks they want and what they, you know, what their perception is of the restaurant. Danny? Yeah, I don't, I don't think I'd disagree with anything. And, you know, I remember when we eliminated smoking from our restaurants in 1990 back then it was only one restaurant. You didn't work at a, a big part of it was that every single night I was, you know, kind of mediating an argument between the last row and non-smoking and the first row and smoking. Yeah. You can't even remember, but it was just awful. And so noise in your face is like smoking your face. It's like, here's another one. You know, someone wears this just disgusting cologne bathed all over their body. And now the whole restaurant has to smell that when they've just ordered a nice bottle of wine and they can't even taste their wine. And so there's been many, many times through the years when we've either had to move tables. The one thing we won't put up is if a table is harassing someone who works for us. And we've asked people to leave the restaurant. It's not fun. We're in the business of hospitality. We're in the business of making you want to leave happier than you came. And then, you know, firing a guest is absolutely not something we want. If it's a baby who's crying, we've offered to hold the baby. We've offered to take the baby somewhere else. And they usually get the message very quickly and, oh, oh, I didn't realize we were annoying everybody else is paying for their meal. We serve alcohol. So obviously there are tables who don't handle their alcohol will. And if there's six guys at a table, that can get really loud and messy. And sometimes we just have to stop and cut them off. I mean, I once got into a fist fight in the very first year I opened Union Square Cafe with someone who was drunk and creating around the dining room with his tie tied around his head, complaining that we didn't sort of bake potatoes. Classy. But we went chess to chess, me and the guy out the door before he finally slammed my head between the door jam and the outside. What? Over potato? Well, well, I think no, over drinking too much alcohol. Yeah, yeah. Was it about a potato, Alisa? You know, one of the things I do is I have this weekly chat with Washington Post subscribers every Wednesday at 11 o'clock. You know, I field questions and dozens and dozens of them about largely like restaurant etiquette. And they're often these sorts of questions. And I think the easiest answer, maybe like the truest answer, is usually you know, tell them that they have to change their behavior. I think the thing that gets much more complicated with specifics is that often those scenarios are really uncomfortable. And it needs to be a pretty well staffed restaurant with a really good support system for a manager. I think to feel enabled to go do that because it's scary and it's nerve wracking. And so, you know, I'll often say, yeah, like you should have, you know, you should have kicked them out or you should have told them they had to stop doing, you know, whatever insert the blank. But I think that then the actual doing of it requires a team that's pretty seasoned and quite confident. And so, you know, it's like it's one more thing restaurants have to think about. And often my answer is end up being sort of like as another diner if you're frustrated in the dining room. Like, probably you're going to have to grit your teeth. Support for the show comes from Gusto. You may not know this about me, but I'm a small business owner. It's called podium media. And there are a lot of things about running a small business that are extremely boring and annoying like the payroll taxes. Gusto can help with that kind of tedious task and actually I use it for my business. Gusto is an online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all in one remote friendly and incredibly easy to use so you can pay higher on board and support your team from anywhere. Gusto can handle automatic payroll tax filing, simple direct deposits, health benefits, commuter benefits, workers comp and 401k. They also help you save time with built in automated tools for things like offer letters on boarding docs, direct deposits and more. 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Up from payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required. $15 per month equivalent to taxes and fees extra. See terms. I'm gonna talk a little bit more about the big issues going on. The economy obviously food insecurity as we test immigration and workers. Now a Gallup poll found that a percentage of U.S. adults eating out at least weekly has fallen 39% down from 53% in 2019. And again this comes as many Americans are struggling to afford basic necessities. And more broadly there's ripple effects of rising rent labor costs and food costs. Immigrant labor has been essential to restaurants and our food supply chain from farms to processing to distribution and the restaurants themselves and the Trump administration immigration crackdown has led to labor shortages and restaurants across the country. I love you each to address this because the economics of it are stuff that are essentially external in many ways. Susan starting with you and then Danny and then I'll start. How's the labor issue been since you know you all prioritized the people who work there. Susan why don't you start? Yeah I mean I think yes there's seems to be way fewer people going out. I think when you look I think in LA I look last time I look sales were down like 25%. And labor shortage is for sure happening out there and part of it I do think came from during COVID. People had to go on and think many restaurant workers ended up in the construction world where they made more money and probably never came back. That along with the fear in the last you know year so of ice has caused labor shortage we lost a number of employees who decided it wasn't worth the risk to stay here in LA. Probably close to 50% of the people who work for us if not more but I think across the country are immigrants. And so that affected labor shortage so labor costs went up dramatically and I think as I mentioned earlier food costs has gone up dramatically and rents have gone up. So all of a sudden you've got less sales you know higher costs so the ability to sort of break even which is why so many restaurants have closes because you can't maintain there so. There's a solution to that from your perspective given I mean obviously Trump is still continuing with ice maybe less aggressively and tear us had a huge effect. I mean I think that is really what we're trying to figure out I think the industry is trying to figure out how do you is it quick casual restaurants so it's less labor which isn't necessarily good for the labor market but it's causing that. Is it causing you know going away from higher cost food items when you look at like the cost of beef you know just sort of how do you sort of shift. So you can bring your food costs back in line and labor costs back in lines eventually I'm assuming things will come back but I think diversification is something we have looked at but even that. challenge because it's the whole other business. So I think we're all struggling to try to figure out what's the answer there. Grea, 100% with what Susan just said. Look, immigration is where I would start because immigrants both in terms of the people opening restaurants and the people working in restaurants have been the backbone of our industry and the uncertainty as to how to go forward with that. I know friends who in Minneapolis in the restaurant business who actually had ice agents looking into the windows of their kitchens during service and they had to pull the shades down in order to just operate their restaurants and all they're trying to do is hire people and serve people in that community and it just doesn't work and Susan just said the uncertainty of not knowing how much we're going to have to pay for goods tomorrow. We don't happen to make olive oil in New York State. We don't happen to grow coffee beans in New York State. We don't make, you know, granelo de multalchino in New York State. So I'm only bringing those things up. They may sound like luxuries to the average person but we're in a business with already slim margins and we're trying to proffer experiences that make people feel better, that employ people and so I think that the more uncertainty that government can take out the better. Now just getting back to something that came up earlier, it's the tipping situation in this country is broken. I tried to address it for five years starting in 2015. Can I just note you eliminated tipping restaurants in 2015 arguing that contribute to unequal pay and wage instability? You reversed the policy in 2020 during the pandemic and you've said the Trump administration's no tax on tips as a misbegotten policy because it widens the gap between tipped and non-tipped employees. So I just want people to understand. Yeah, thank you. A big part of the reason that I did it is that tipped employees make more money every time many prices go up which is the only way I've ever seen it happen in my entire career because a tip is a multiplier of that and we're really really happy because we think restaurant workers should be paid more money. The problem is that in many states, certainly New York state, it's different in California which is more progressive but in New York state it's not legal for tips to be shared with cooks and therefore the cook wages stay relatively stagnant through all these years and so that just doesn't really work whatsoever. I was just in Michigan. My son is a cook. It's Boulevard in San Francisco and he's working his way up to the hotline I guess I don't know what that means but we were in a restaurant in Michigan where my other son is in school and there was a thing where you could add 10% for the kitchen which was really interesting. I had never seen it was a state place the place the state place that's famous there at nights or something like that and my son of course did it four times which I loved because he's like that and he goes the people and the kitchen don't get the same amount of money right he was like and then I got a lecture about that. I just want to say when we did bring back tipping in 2020 when the government finally let us open our restaurants we instituted for the first time a revenue share for our cooks and so our cooks really appreciate that. The problem is that it shouldn't be our I think the government should make it possible for tips to be and I think in California it is legal to have those shared. Yeah that was I'd never seen it for Elisar. Yeah before I answer I just want to say well I've got Danny on the line that I do bring up your tipping policies and the lack there of and then bringing it back often when I'm trying to help diners understand why they need to understand how restaurants work even if they sort of feel like they shouldn't have to because you know when I get questions about you know why do I have to tip I think it really is important for people to understand that you know there was or there could be a world in which that was part of the cost of dinner and for reasons both on the industry side and the appetite of diners to pay that extra 20% you know in the line item it hasn't worked that well and so I always just sort of tell people it's not a great system but it's the one we've got and in terms of what I'm seeing in relation to labor I would say ever since covid I have been writing about many more restaurants that feel like nice somewhat upscale kind of chef driven restaurants but operate like counter service casual restaurants and I that's a largely a labor issue or labor consideration whether or not it's an issue I like a lot of these restaurants a lot you know that are getting rid of table service that are cutting back on their number of servers and doing that by having you order at the counter before you sit and this is happening in Austin it's happening in upstate New York it's happening here in DC and and that is really largely you know I think there's some philosophical things in there too of chefs reimagining after covid the kinds of restaurants they they want to run in the level of formality but a lot of that is just you know I think doing the math and saying to themselves okay if I cut two or three people off of payroll can I afford you know X thing that I couldn't afford before can I make my business a little more sustainable or you know some of these chefs also were asking can I use that money to to better pay my my existing staff to give them health care you know like rye bunny and DC is doing a really interesting job of this so you know chefs are ever creative restaurant tours are ever creative and they're finding some they're finding some good answers to I think just a crummy question so I'm going to end talking just about very quickly a more strange social media tech and AI question because it is in the industry it's happening so I'm going to start with you I think you're a food media pro but you and marys you cooked with julie child and starred in two hot tamales on the food network in the 1990s you also competed on top chef masters and now again you're cooking on instagram and tiktok I really enjoy what you're doing there how do you look at it well you know there's many things about the way getting to the public has shifted which I think is incredible I mean I think being able to do social media instagram youtube we're just launching a youtube channel you know all that I think is really wonderful because it gives people the ability to get out there in front of the public if that's what they want to do in order to grow their business I mean for me I think I do it in order to grow our business it's you know it's work it's a responsibility I do it for fun and you know often my wife is like oh my god I can't believe you posted that you didn't even look at it you didn't see like how bad you looked you didn't but I think the charm of it honestly thank you but you know I think it's just it's important because it keeps you out there and there's no question it is for me it's work I mean if I'm cooking dinner at home I feel like I put that on I don't worry about it very much it's what it is and that's what I do if I'm doing actually filming you know and doing it with someone that film for youtube you know it takes time you have to set up so it's actually like my workday but I think it's critical in these days to be able to help and grow your business and I love it because it gives you a voice out there to talk about things that are important to you and why you know people that don't use leftovers use them and it's crazy waste there's too many people starving don't waste food so yeah it gives you a voice and Danny it's impossible again to ignore tech and restaurants QR codes touchscreen ordering weird AI slot ads marketing photos how do you think about using things like AI or what Susan is doing for yourself and your restaurants well I've never had a TV show like Susan has had but technology for us is I've always looked at tech and restaurants is a way to advance touch so if we can take the friction out of out of the hospitality industry and actually add humanity to it through tech we do that so AI I have no idea if the doom sayers are right and I'm just not even thinking about that what I'm thinking about is that we have a concept we call ABCD so you can ABCD always be collecting dots so you can always be connecting dots and the dots are pieces of information about people so that we can customize experiences which is what I think hospitality is and we have never had a greater dot collecting agency than AI it's almost malpractice to not know who you're serving in the restaurant everybody has preferences you know hospitality is not one size fits all that's what services hospitality is customizing it so I love it I also love the degree to which we can use it in the back of the house to take administrative tasks that are really boring that actually keep our managers off the floor instead of greeting guests that's another way that we really like to use it use in both those ways I would agree with you about it knowing customers including in regular retail now Elzari I think your biggest story that got tons of social media attention was a $60 loaf of fry bread that's being sold in this bakery I read the hell out of that story and it was all over the place you know you said it's everything right and wrong with New York I want you to talk about putting that story out because it got people talking but talk very quickly about why how you thought about writing that story and what it meant because it got enormous social media attention well thanks for reading you know that was a story that had already lived lived sort of a full cycle of internet virality by the time I got to it, and so when I went to New York, ate the bread, was trying to form sort of some thoughts about it, I mostly was just thinking about how to write a story that maybe was less about the economics of actually producing the loaf of bread, which no, of course, does not actually cost $60 for them to produce. And more about sort of what it said about New York, what it said about sort of consumers and just who we are right now. And, you know, it's like 800 words, it's not profound story, but I had a sense that if it was just another sort of outrage story about, you know, essentially like, is the bread good or bad, it probably wouldn't have very much reach. That story had just been told and I was already seeing it on my feeds. And so I, I just was sort of asking myself, well, how do you keep the conversation going one more day? And, you know, kept it going one more day. And the bread was good. And the bread was really good. I mean, it's a huge loaf of bread, I ate it for like a week and a half. All right, my last question for all of you, and I really appreciate you being so thoughtful and this whole thing is the restaurant business that we've talked about is a lot harder than it used to be, but chefs and restaurateurs have to continue to be scrappy and creative because food is a creative business of all things. I'd love to each of you to talk about who are succeeding despite the challenges and finding success. What is something you've seen recently that you think, wow, that was super interesting. I'd like to leave it on a positive note. What are you sort of heartened by? Susan, you are first. I am sort of amazed when I go to a restaurant, which I honestly can say I don't go to very much anymore because I, you know, for the first time in all my life, I'm actually cooking more at home than I have for years. But, you know, there are restaurants that I feel like are still doing amazing business, like, you know, in downtown LA. Like, all right, Manash, Bavelle and Bessie, I think they're amazing and they're busy. And Safi's is, you know, there, you know, it's hard for me to say, have they changed anything? You know, I, you know, I don't really have a very good answer for that. Like, what's, you know, what is the formula now for having a successful restaurant? I mean, I do see that like, in Vegas, we saw sort of a downturn in business. We're seeing it come back up again now. I think part of it is the community that is slowly coming back. What are they looking for? I think price is an important part of it. I mean, I think that's the dilemma for the restaurant business right now. What is it? Oh, sorry. I mentioned it a little earlier, but Ry Bunny here in DC is the restaurant that most comes to mind as kind of like embracing this central tension of how do you run a restaurant in 2026. They closed their Michelin star restaurant that had been in that same space for 10 years and, you know, gave up their star and gave up everything attached to that restaurant and refashioned it as a more casual counter ordering restaurant where you then sit down and there's full touch table service. And so it is just frankly a very weird model and there are no reservations. So what it means is that dinner starts by waiting in a very long line because everyone to get a table lines up to order and the only way to order is to wait behind the person who is ordering in front of you. And so there are elements of it that sound really kind of unpleasant or almost antagonistic, but it is really, really like a loving, friendly, warm environment. And you know, not everything about it works perfectly for me, but I am really encouraged to see chefs and restaurant tours grappling and for it to really be like working. Danny? Well, one of the most fun parts of being on my book tour has been going to about 20 cities and never missing an opportunity to try a new restaurant while I'm there and see what's going on in different cities. And if I can say one through line is that it's not necessarily one restaurant, one restaurant model. The funny thing is is that no one in our industry who opened a restaurant did it because they thought this was going to be an easy way to make money. They did it because we don't have a choice. This is who we are. We want to build a community, create a place. But what they all have in common, the ones that are working are when the restaurant community in that town is supporting each other. And when the chefs in that town are supporting each other. And I kind of want to tie it back to, you know, the list of the 40 best restaurants in Washington DC. When you do that list, you're actually stitching together a community. You're not just ranking individual restaurants. And you're making Washington a destination for people who like restaurants. And I really think that rising tide is going to lift all those boats. I've seen this in St. Louis. I've seen it in Denver. I saw it in Santa Barbara. It's called Little Mountain. They just got a great review in the New York Times. We want to do something new. But the biggest thing we want to do is to seed the chef community for tomorrow. And I just think that, that's the new thing. Right. That's excellent. Excellent. I'm going to end on one last thing. If you had to pick one new restaurant or something that just delighted you recently or one that is essential, I'll start anchor bar in San Francisco. If it goes away, I will die. It's my favorite place to be on the earth. It's in my neighborhood in the Castro. Fantastic oysters. Oh, chupino, all kinds of things. Never change is what I have to say about it. Never, ever change because I love it so much. You go L star. Yellow and DC sort of continuing that feeling of truly casual restaurants. You know, this chef, Michael or Fidi has some really expensive, very hard to get in two restaurants. This is a counter ordering falafel joint, pita falafel, and sort of grilled things. But he cooks all this fast casual food over wood and coal. And first of all, it's really, really delicious. But I love that someone is kind of trying to do something that is genuinely accessible sort of on all of these different, you know, great, you know, all of these ways. All right, Danny. If the river cafe in London were to close or I could never go back there, I would be very, very sad. Yeah, amazing. That's it. It's a lovely restaurant. You're right. That's it. I'm always happy when I'm there. What's your favorite thing about it? Just the mood or the minute I walk in the door, I feel good. And I love, I love what I call spreads a tour, which is the apparent effort that went into making such good food is not evident. In other words, they make it so you can just sit back and relax. They're not trying to have all the flourishes. They're just cooking good food. The service, the hospitality, they're smart. You know, you feel like your server is someone who you can hang out with and learn from. Yeah. It's a joyful restaurant. All right. You finish up, Susan. All right. Well, for me, it's so much about how the restaurant feels. So I'm two favorite opposite. One is back on the beach where I can have my feet in the sand and have just a delicious avocado toast in Los Angeles and vibrato. Her bellbirds place because my wife and I are both big music people. She was a singer-songwriter before a director. And they have the most amazing music. So one of my favorite things is to have a mezcal and soda and grapefruit juice and a baked potato with everything on it. The big divine is amazing. Thank God that guy could find a baked potato. Anyway, I really appreciate it. This was a wonderful conversation and you're all wonderful. Everything you guys do and I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Enjoy it. Thanks, Kara. Today's show was produced by Vicki Virgolina, Michelle Aloi, Catherine Milsob, Megan Bernie, and Madeline Laplant-Duby. Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Aiman Wellan, Jim McEl and Manolo Moreno. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Riquan and our theme music is by Tracademics. If you're already following the show, you're practicing enlightened hospitality. If not, go and eat a baked potato. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for on with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network and us. We'll be back on Monday with more. Right. You don't forget the music budget. We're going to stick with whatever's in the public domain. 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